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Friday, 18 August 2017

Hello wonderful people, trust we are all doing great today.
May the Lord bless us and our homes in Jesus name.

My last post drew some interesting reactions that I would
love to respond to in this post, please note that these were not just the responses I got, they are just the ones that calls for a response for me. I pray and hope that we will keep learning as
we make efforts to make our marriages an haven for us and our family to the
glory of God.

Below are some of the comments that I would want to respond
to in today’s post.

First Reaction

No offence meant, but I don't agree with this post. It's
easy to give advice and counsel when we are not the ones wearing the
shoe.
How do you tell a woman whose husband hates her, claims she is evil, married
two additional wives, not to hurt? How do you tell her to make love passionately, like it was a lack of passionate
love-making that broke the home? For all I know, the woman may have been
praying when he married the 2nd and instead of a miracle, her husband married
the third.
I always believe marriage is not a do-or-die affair. I would rather fear for
the woman's safety in the midst of hate than try to restore the home. If there
is anyone who needs to work right now, it is the man. I would rather look on
how I would further empower this school teacher who has three children to cater
to, than win back a man who walked outside his vows. In the eyes of God, he is
the sinner not her. He is the one that needs repentance.
In addition, when we get to the judgment throne, God will not judge us a
couple, but as individuals. Our faults will lie at how we trained our children.
So, I will advise that woman to focus on making sure her son/s are raised well.
My personal advice to her would be: forgive him. Let go of all hurt. Move on
with your life with or without him. Empower yourself. Find joy from within. It
is never the duty of anyone to make us happy, they can only complement our
efforts. Find a hobby. Mingle with friends and family. Save money and insure
your children's future, don't make your husband next of kin. Use any of your
child. Finally, go to God and let him console you. He is the husband that never
fails. If that home is toxic, move out for your own sanity and good health.
One more thing, Babes. You can never compare Sarah's situation with hers. Sarah
knew what she was getting into. She had her options and when her plan failed,
she used her option without flinching. She didn't need to fast and pray for a
miracle. She just said it and it happened! I can imagine the woman in this
write up saying such to her husband. The slaps and beatings that would design
her face would even make heaven reel.

Second Reaction

Babes Oluchi, you wrote my mind. It's easy to dish out
advice until u experience the exact same thing. A man with free will do what he
wants to do no matter what. The man is grossly irresponsible and no amount of
sex will change him. Let's stop rewarding bad behaviour and laying a bad example
for our kids.

Just to add, Our Lord that we should emulate never enabled
bad behaviour. Its not Christianity to enable bad behaviour it's religious. Let
the woman move on, she is miserable as it is, please don't add to it by heaping
coals of fire on her.

Third Reaction

"The responsibility to build the home rest
solely on the wife as we read in Proverbs 14:1".....

This...and a lot of other things are untrue and the very things that are
causing problems in marriages from time immemorial. We have shouted ourselves hoarse trying to make women learn to
stop enabling irresponsibility in men. Two cannot work together except they
agree!

2. "Ensure that your sex life with your husband is fantastic, satisfy your
husband sexually and in that regard do not give him room to have any
complain"

Are we for a moment...going to consider the risk of being infected with an STD?
Oh,,,,we did not think about that? The man in question has 2 other woman who
may or may not have other sexual partners. How many times have we seen women
who are pros in bed, women who do all the things mentioned in the post and even
more...yet their men cheat on them with an inexperienced woman? Do you know what
this does to a woman's self-esteem? IT IS NOT HER...IT IS HIM!!! Stop ignoring
the very root of the problem.

3. "Those who stole him from you did just that, beat them to their
game."
NO, MA. He was not stolen. He made a conscious choice. After you've won that
set of women, what of others that'll come later? What a way to live...driving
yourself to a point of exhaustion because you are constantly living your life
to "beat the game of the women who stole your man". Is that your
God-given purpose? Is that what God had in mind when he created you? It's
tiring, please.

Fourth Reaction

Permit me to say that the fact that it worked for you does
not mean it will work for someone else. Not every woman is willing to spend all
of their youth going through emotional torture (+ or - physical torture),
praying fire prayer and basically living their lives only to please a man, just so that when he has diabetes and
erectile dysfunction at 70years he can come back to her. What is left to enjoy
of the marriage? And I think it is unfair to imply that the only wise option is
to 'fight for the marriage because the responsibility of building a marriage
rests SOLELY on a woman's shoulders'. I think it is also wise to know that
everyone has a mission from earth apart from marriage and it might be foolish
to remain in a miserable marriage for life because like it or not, prayers and
all you listed may do nothing to make the marriage better. Let's just say you
were one of the lucky few your tips worked for.

I am so sorry these comments are quite lengthy but I didn’t
write them and I just wanted to ensure that I capture the comments exactly as
they were written. And to say that I don’t appreciate these comments would be a
lie because they give me room for further discussions on marriage issues.

Also please not that I don't give nods of approval of the evil men do in marriage. There are quite a handful of post on this blog that men have been strongly chastised, so on this blog we take a holistic view of marriage issues based solely on Bible truth. No sentiments whatsoever.

One thing I have discovered in life is that a lot of those
who advice for divorce and are always of the opinion that marriage is not a
do-or-die affair are those who would do anything to keep their own marriage. A
lot of feminist actually do have happy homes and when I tried checking the
profiles of some of those who posted this comments I noticed they had lovely
family pictures of husband, wife and children put up there. Its sad they aren’t teaching
what they are doing to keep it together in their own marriages to those who are having trouble in theirs. Surely it's not that they don't have arguments and misunderstandings in their marriage, you bet they do.

When my marriage was in trouble I had a friend who was in
fact a close relative of my husband that I always confided in and she was gave me similar advice as these ones I posted above and those comments from her then made me feel
so good that I would go home and put up an attitude of attack before defense towards
my husband. It wasn’t making my situation any better. It was a fire for fire situation in
my home any day I venture speaking to this my adviser until one day when I went to see this my friend and confidant in her home and I
saw her treating her husband like a king. A scenario totally different from the picture she had painted for me and advise she had given me. That was when I realized how foolish
I had been. I stopped seeing her and picked up my cross and began to follow
Jesus, looking up to Him to help me heal my terrible marriage.

In response to these messages the first thing that caught
my attention is the insinuation that the husband hates the wife and thinks she
is evil; now its interesting to note that it wasn’t hate that was between these
two people when they got married. At the point of marriage they loved each
other to the point that they concluded within themselves to spend the rest of
their lives together. So what went wrong along the line? How did love turn to
hate between them? Wouldn’t it be better wisdom to try to address the
underlining issue between these two that has now made them enemies rather than lovers and friends than to
conclude that walking out of the marriage is the best solution. No wonder Jesus
said in Matthew 19:8-9 that the reason why Moses permitted divorce was because the
hearts of men where hard, indeed the hearts of men are still hard and unyielding
till this day.

Then another comment says that it is wrong to say that it’s the duty of the woman to build the home, when its clearly stated in Proverbs
14:1 that “The wise woman builds her home, but with her own hands the
foolish one tears hers down.” It’s most likely we have different Bibles that we
are reading or that the Bible is a lie. For this comment, I have no response,
but a wise person is one who follows the word of God as found in the Bible and lives
his/her life based on the truth of the word of God as found in the Bible.

One thing that comes to mind on an issue such as this is
that when a husband leaves his wife, he is not leaving her to be with or marry
another man or an animal, he is actually leaving his wife to be with another
woman. So you ask, what does this other woman have that his wife does not have? What
is she doing right that the wife isn’t? That in itself should be a wake-up call
for the wife, that another woman can beat you to it and be better than you in treating your husband right. True the man made a conscious decision to be with another woman, but what did the wife make a conscious effort to do?

Interesting in the case of the woman I shared her story in my last post; a couple of months ago I was lying in bed with my husband and we were
looking at pictures on his facebook wall and we stumbled on the pictures of
this same man with a birthday cake. It was his birthday and he celebrated it
in his office with his colleagues, took some pictures and posted them on
facebook. And my husband commented and said the cake he was cutting and taking
pictures with was made for him by his third wife. So I thought why was it not
the first and God recognized wife the one making a cake for her husband on his
birthday? Well I guess she was still hurting.

But as an ordinary person is it understandable that you
will gravitate towards the one who shows you that she cares for you more than
the one who doesn’t. I don’t excuse this man’s behavior in anyway and I
condemned it strongly in my last post and still do. But two wrongs never make a
right.

It’s quite easy to say that a wife should forget about her
erring husband, get a divorce and move on and concentrate on herself and children. It’s good advice, but
not good enough. These children will grow and stop to be under your roof to start their
own leaves. Whether you like it or not those children will leave and you will
be left all alone; at that time, what happens. What happens when you are old and
grey alone with no strength for women empowerment and you are all alone in a
big mansion with no companion? Ecclesiastes says two are better than one, God
sure didn’t make a mistake when He declared in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good
for the man to be alone.

Another interesting thing I find about woman of these days,
same of which we find in the comments I am sharing is that it is quite convenient
to discard an erring husband, but when you have a child who is giving you
troubles, do you just throw that child away like you would your husband? If you
can labor over your child, why then can’t you labor to save your marriage? A
healthy marriage will provide well behaved children. The assignment to train a child belong to the husbands based on God's standard and not the wife. So you are taking up a task that God assigned for your husband and leaving the man to rest on his responsibility, and an irresponsible man who go to rest and say it was your decision to take up the task so he shouldn't be blamed for it. If you build your marriage and join forces with your husband to train your children, the burden will be easy and you will have good returns for your labor over those children.

In one of the comments, a lady wrote that the wife must
have prayed for her marriage and what she got was a second wife, so rather than
pray for her marriage she should go to God to console her. Now if God did not
prevent her husband from taking a second wife, He should just console her at
least. Isn't it? Well I am trying not to be sarcastic in my response, so I’ll just say
what should be said.

First God answers prayers when you ask right. God is a God
that hears and answers the prayer and cry of His children; He does not close His
mind to their voices, but God does not do magic. When you pray, God answers and
gives you a line of action to take, when you do as He has instructed, you will
get your desired outcome. It’s important that when you pray you also pay
attention to the voice of God telling you what to do. If you follow that voice
you can never make a mistake. And if you are not clear with what you have
heard, cross-check with your Bible. God and His word are one and the same. He
will never tell you to do what is contrary to what you have in the Bible.
God will not tell you to divorce your spouse when He said that He hates
divorce.

But God will not bend for you no matter the circumstance. He
will not change His rules and patterns for you. If you are praying and you expect
to wake up and see a new man right before you who is faultless and sweet to behold without any input from you, then
you are getting it all wrong. Prayers without deeds are dead. When you pray, God
shows you the line of action to take, when you take it, you will succeed. If
you are not sure search your Bible find out what stories or instructions are in
line with what you are trusting God for and follow the instruction and you will
have success. For every locked door there is a key, find the key and open the
door. 1 Peter 3:1-2 says if you are married to an unbelieving husband, it is through your behavior when he sees the purity and the reverence of your life that he would be won over to the Lord without words, but with actions. So you are the tool God will use to bring about the change in your husband that you have been praying for. That is why prayers must be accompanied with right actions in direction of God's instructions either directly to you or by following what you have read and learnt in the Bible.

When you pray for God's financial blessing you don't just sit in your house doing nothing and expect an angel to come drop billions of cash on your laps. When you want God to bless you the first thing that comes to your mind is your work. You will work and pray that God bless your work and make you succeed in your endeavor; that is just how is works in marriage, you will pray and then act based on the instructions you receive from God concerning what you have prayed for. You can't pray and not act right and expect a magic from God. Such does not yield the returns you desire.

Then another person also mentioned that I was just lucky
with my own marriage situation. My dear sister, I wasn't lucky, I was determined to make it work and it worked.
I was faced with a marital challenge and I was determined to have victory of
that challenge. I prayed and I followed the instructions of God and with God I
succeeded. I had the last laugh over my situation. Rather than bending for my
challenge, it bent for me.

And in the case of STDs that was mentioned, if God is
keeping you alive and you are a child of God no matter how many times your
husband sleeps with other women God will always keep you safe. It is not in the
nature of God to punish a wife for the sins of her husband. Jeremiah 31:29-30
says, “In those days people will no
longer say, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are
set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour
grapes – his own teeth will be set on edge.” It’s not unheard of that a husband
would contact a sexually transmitted disease and the wife is clean and safe yet they are married and well together (remember Magic Johnson the famous basketballer). So I don’t have a fear for a wife in
this case, it’s the husband who sinned and it’s the husband who will be
punished.

Just to rape this up I will say, marriage is to be enjoyed
and not endured. But whether you will enjoy your marriage or not is a function
of how well you have built it. If you want to eat a sweet cake, you know you
have to put in a sizeable amount of sugar in your cake mixture before putting
it in the oven to bake. In the same way, if you want to beautiful marriage, it’s
important that you begin to learn the secrets of a successful marriage and
apply what you have learnt. Marriage is an investment that is worth far more
than the value of what you have invested in it when you invest right.

On a final note, I will say that your marriage decisions
are yours to make. What this blog is all about is to help you make the right
decisions in marriage by following the word of God. Here we teach the secrets to success in marriage based on the truth of the Bible. If all else fails God and His words never fails. I pray that we all have a wonderful marital life in Jesus name.

Wednesday, 16 August 2017

I am grateful to be alive and I thank God. It’s just so easy for us to take
the breath of life that we possess for granted, but with a heart of gratitude I
thank God for mine, and that of my family and for the lives that are been touched by this
blog.

Today I want to share a story about a wife whose husband
has two other wives and we are still counting. This strong young man does not
look like he is ready to stop his wife acquisition activities. I was introduced to the first wife of this man just when her husband took the second wife and she was
in a state of depression. And she was asked to speak with me and that I might
probably counsel her in order to help her marriage get better.

But one problem that I had with this wife which is
synonymous with many other wives was that she wasn’t ready to bend. She wasn’t
ready to work through the situation she was in and make it better. She was very hurt which
is very understandable and she felt really betrayed which also is expected. But to counsel a person who seemed to have made up her mind to sit on her hurt and fan the emotions of betrayal, is quite difficult. It's easy to help someone who wants to be helped than to force help on someone who isn't really looking for it but just wants your sympathy.

Till I write this piece to you, this lady is yet to get her
marriage back; as a matter of fact the husband has taken the third wife and only
God knows if that would be the last or we are still counting.

Naturally this has affected these two people negatively in no small
measure. The husband who is just a salary earner with limited income cannot
afford to cater for the needs of three wives and six children and himself
inclusive. He is heavily in debt and his life is messed up literally. Because
of his dysfunctional home, he is unstable on his job and he is just still
employed due to the mercy of his boss who is aware of his predicament of self-orchestrated
destruction.

But the wife is not spared too. She is just a teacher and
we know that teachers don’t earn much in Nigeria but just a few of them. She
has three children to take care of with her constrained income and there are
unending bills to pay; children’s school fees, house rent, feeding, transport,
just to mention a few, with the husband contributing close to nothing to the
upkeep of this wife and her children. Whenever he has money, he settles the need
of the second and third wife and leaves his first wife to fend for herself and
her children. He has tagged her a witch and claimed she is the reason his life
is messed up. How convenient!

There are many stories like this, in fact too many of them
like this one. And so many of them just never recover. The wife is
so bruised she never wants to have anything to do with the man anymore, and
till the husband goes to his grave he will resolve in his heart that his wife
is the one behind his troubled life because that is the convenient conclusion
for him to arrive at. He would not want to own up to his errors or convict
himself of any wrong doing in the matter. The man is never wrong.

This situation like many others like it appears to defy
solution. But God said two are better than one; success in life is closely
related to success in marriage. And believe me, a messed up marriage will
surely reflect in other areas of the lives of individual spouses in the
marriage.

I will address the wife in this post, and when I mean the
wife, I am referring to the first wife, the wife of the man’s youth. Not because she is guilty of any wrong doing
but because she failed to do everything within her power to safe her marriage. True
she is not responsible for her husband’s sins and wrong doings but she is
responsible for her reactions to her husband’s action. She is not accountable
for the challenges she is faced with in her marriage, but she is responsible
for the way she reacted to the challenges. Now whether she will be victorious
over that challenge or she will be swept over by the challenge all depends on
how she reacts to the challenge. I have often mentioned on this blog that it is
not advisable to make decisions on marriage issues, trials and challenges based on emotions but on divine
wisdom. When you allow emotions to rule over wisdom in your marriage, the
outcome of your reaction may not be desirable.

To the wife of this man in the story
above and to many other wives who might be going through similar issues in their
marriage; her mistake is that she failed to win her husband over basically because she
allowed her emotions control her decision making. She allowed the emotions of
hurt and hate arising from betrayal and abuse of trust from her husband to
overshadow her need to apply wisdom and fight for her marriage. It is okay to
feel hurt, but more okay to work past the hurt, heal and do the needful.

The responsibility to build the home rest solely on the
wife as we read in Proverbs 14:1. The success of any home and marriage
primarily rest on the wife because the Lord knows that based on the ability He
built in her she can pull things through with His help and succeed. The home is not
built on emotional sentiment, it is not built on the feelings of the wife or on
the reactions of her husband towards her. But a successful home is built on wisdom,
knowledge and understanding as found in Proverbs 24:3-4. A woman who would
build a successful home will move beyond emotion and face the task with divine
wisdom and prayer.

If you would ask me if I blame the wife for what her
husband has done, I will answer a big No. But despite the careless lust of her
husband and his total disregard of the sanctity of his marriage, the wife
should not tow the same line of action; two wrongs never make a right.

When God looks at this erring man, the wife He recognizes with
him is the wife of his youth; his first wife (Malachi 2:13-15). As the first
wife to this adulterous man, you are his suitable helper from God. You are the
favor career in the life of his man, and so you are not just any woman in his
life neither are you just any wife to him, but by God’s standard, you are his suitable helper from God on assignment in his life to help him be
better than he was when you met him and better than he is now in his adulterous
state, and the Lord is willing to help you succeed in this assignment. The
success of this assignment is not subject to your husband’s actions, love
towards you or lack of love for you. This assignment is a God given one and the
assessment is done by God and the reward is received from God and not your
husband. Wisdom and prayers are the major keys to success in this assignment.

After all the hurt (which is acceptable and
understandable), it’s important to let go of the emotions, apply wisdom and
fight for your marriage. That may sound tough, but the end reward is a sweet
marriage that people around you would be envious of.

When I talk about fighting for your marriage, I do not mean
that you start to pick fights with your husband and his other wives, but that
you pray over your marriage and pray for your husband. You need to pray God
into his life until he becomes a totally changed and repentant man. Then you
support your prayer with actions. The actions that are required of you is such that you will positively occupy your husband’s life to the point that he
forgets that he was ever married to other women but you.

Ensure that your sex life with your husband is fantastic,
satisfy your husband sexually and in that regard do not give him room to have
any complain. Also ensure that you keep your home clean and welcoming, make sure
you give your husband good food. Ensure you remember the special dates in your marriage and celebrate them with time. Send him daily prayerful text messages, let him know
you are praying for him. If you can afford it get him gifts on his birthdays and on other special days of your marriage, please do so. All
these are actions that will help you win back your husband and then rebuild your
marriage. Those who stole him from you did just that, beat them to their game.

If he does not respond initially, please don't stop. Continue to sow the seed because in due season they will germinate and produce fruits for you. With consistency and perseverance you will get the desired outcome.

Given the fact that in the story above the wife appears to
be the victim, yet she is the savior of her marriage. A lot of people might
think it’s foolish to fight for her marriage in the manner that I have
proposed, but that foolishness is the wisdom that has saved a lot of marriages
from total collapse including mine. And a lot of happy homes that we see and
envy today were birth from the foolishness that has yielded sweet results.

If you then ask me what happens to the other wives the
adulterous man has foolishly married, I will ask you what happened to Hagar in
the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar that we find in the Bible. The other
wives are not the focus here, the wife of his youth is the one that owns the
marriage and she needs to fight for her marriage.

Marriage is a very beautiful thing though with many
soar stories about it and with the advent of social media, it’s fast becoming
an undesirable institution.

A lot of people have entered into marriage
completely unprepared and in truth love does not sustain marriage, otherwise we
won’t have high divorce rate and violence in marriage as we do today. And I
dare to tell you that even our parents don't know exactly what it means to be
married.

While they are still struggling with their own
marriage and merely managing to keep it together, they have little or no idea
on how to help you keeps yours. It’s a race you need to run on your own and
find your own balance and haven in marriage.

With the exposure in the world today, wives of this
generation cannot endure what their mothers endured in marriage, and husbands
have become less men than their fathers were. This has in no small measure
affected the marriage institution.

Now get a glimpse of it:

“Marriage is you swearing to God before all men
present that you are willing and ready to pour out all of yourself in making
your spouse a better person, all the days of your life so help you God.” This
is not subject to how good or bad your spouse is, it’s a venture that only the
grace of God is all your need to see you through. And it’s God who assess and
rewards your performance.

Now how do you intend to pull this through? How
would you accomplish that which you have sworn to do before God and man?

When you understand the basics of marriage and you
have the willingness and temperament for it, you will make a success of it.
“The Marriage Handbook” is very handy to help you through it.

You
can get a 390pages PDF copy of this book and an additional free PDF copy of one
other book by Aderinsola Obasa by following the procedure below.

Thursday, 10 August 2017

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild
animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You
must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the
trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree
that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will
die.’”

“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be
like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
food and pleasing to the eye, and also desiring for gaining wisdom, she took
some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he
ate it.

But the Lord called to the man, “Where are you?”

Hello people, I hope I have not been gone too long. In
today’s post I want to share something from the Bible. I hope that the Lord
will breathe on today’s post and cause it to make a big impact in your life and
marriage in Jesus name.

There are huge lessons to learn from the story of the fall in
Genesis 3 and it’s common to think that Eve caused the fall of mankind. Looking
at this story from face value one would conclude that it was all the fault of
Eve that man began to sin, but one question that comes to mind is that “what did
Adam do to prevent the fall?” I have shared on this Bible passage before and my outlook to this scripture hasn't changed much.

I have seen a handful of marriages where the husband and
the wife act independently of each other. But the truth of the matter is that the
consequences of each action whether by the wife or husband impacts on both
lives. When God said that they are no longer two, but one, in flesh and spirit,
He was not making an erroneous declaration. For example, there is no way a man
can commit adultery and it will not have its negative impact on his wife and in
the same vein, there is no way a wife can default in her role as a wife that
its impact will not be felt by the husband.

Going back to the story of the fall, the first marriage on
earth; when the serpent was going to approach the marriage unit, he entered
through the rear, he spoke to the wife rather than the husband who was the head. Satan knew the order of things, he
understood that the man was the head and if there was anyone to meet on matters that has to do with the two, it should be the husband. But he went through the wife; the wife
who was designed to be the support but totally disregarded the fact that she was the support.

When God gave his instruction, He spoke to Adam even before
Eve came into the scene. All that she knew of the instructions of God to man was told to her by her husband Adam. Now an intruder coming to make enquiries on what she only had
second hand information on should have earned a response like “Go meet my
husband, he knows better than I do on this,” but instead she assumed the lead
without full conviction on the matter at hand and we all know the end result of
that.

But the bigger picture in this story is “What did Adam do
to prevent the fall?” The Bible tells us that Adam was with Eve when the
serpent came to speak to her. The whole scene play out before him
and he did absolutely nothing. “Eve gave Adam of the fruit and he also ate of it,”
is what the Bible records. So while Adam who was the custodian of the
instructions from God was observing, Eve was taking the lead and he did nothing.
When people say sin came into the world as a result of the sins of Eve, I say
that sin came into the world as a result of the weakness of Adam.

The fact that a man loves his wife does not translate to
the fact that he should stand by and watch while she makes mistakes; it does
not translate to the fact that she is allowed to be the head of the home. As a
man you should love your wife sacrificially and unconditionally yet be firm as
the head over your wife. Love and weakness are not synonymous to each other.

I love the part of the story where God comes into the
garden; when the Lord approached the couples He didn’t call Eve to account,
but the Bible tells us in Genesis 3:9 that God called to the man. It was the
man that God held accountable. It was the man who was the custodian of the
instruction and the head over his wife that God called to account.

As couples and intending couples we need to have some issues
properly placed in our minds. First, as a wife when you are going wrong bear in
mind that your husband will call you to order, that does not mean he doesn’t love
you but he is accountable to God over the issues of your home and marriage. He
is the head and responsible for the wellbeing of his family. As a wife I
understand that it hurts when your husband scolds you, but it’s good to be
positive about it rather than proving points that are not healthy for your marriage union.

As a husband please note that loving your wife is key to
the success of your marriage, God’s rules to the husband in marriage is to love
his wife as himself and as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25-30), but
love shouldn’t make you weak. Love should make you call wrong right and then
call right wrong. You are the first line of accountability when it comes to the
issues and affairs of your home and marriage. I implore you to love but yet be firm and disciplined and please don't abuse your wife in the process.

Thursday, 3 August 2017

So what does she
do when she has already been thrown out of his life for several years, and have
prayed all manner of prayers?...........Talking from practical experience.

Good day wonderful people, I trust you are doing very
great. So am I, and I bless God for us all in Jesus name.

I woke this morning to notice the comment above on my last post
waiting for moderation. I had thought it was just a comment to be published but
noticed that it was also a question to be responded to. So rather than just
respond to the comment personally to the one who asked, I decided to share it
as a post so that many would be able to benefit from the response. May the Lord
God Almighty uphold us to have a wonderful marital life here on earth in Jesus
name.

Malachi 2:13-14

Another thing you
do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no
longer pays attention to your offerings or accept them with pleasure from your
hands. You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between
you and the wife of your youth; because you have broken faith with her, though
she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

By the grace and will of God, I will begin to answer this
question from the scripture above. I hope all women will have a deep
understanding of this scripture.

The fact that your husband has already thrown you out of his life does
not mean you have stopped to be his wife. Remember it is only death that annuls
a marriage covenant before God (Romans 7:2-3). And that is why we noticed in
Genesis 21:8-12 when Sarah insisted that Hagar and his son must be sent away
from Abraham’s home and life, God supported that position because it was Sarah
God recognized and accepted as Abraham’s wife. That is still God’s position
till date, because He is not a God that changing like shifting shadows. God is not standing as a witness between the man and his wife or wives, but between the man and the wife of his youth (his first wife).

In the world today, it is not unheard of that couples who
have been separated for up to 30years have come back together and renewed their
marriage vows and picked up their marriage covenant from where they dropped it
off to finish off together. But in Jesus name I pray that yours will not take
that long.

The fact that you have not had your prayers answered does
not mean that God accepts your separation with your husband as final. Because
if He says he hates divorce He means He hates divorce. He is not a God to say a thing and do otherwise.
God honors His word more than His name. He will not speak and act contrary to
His word or permit that His children act contrary to His word.

If this is the nature of God, then I will say that you who
are praying, needs to consider the content of your prayer if it is in line with the will of God. What do you harbor in your
heart as you pray and above all, what is your relationship with the God that
you are praying to? The Bible tells us that the prayer of a sinner is an abomination
to God. Do you have that intimate relationship with God that gives you
confidence to approach His throne and be sure of answers? One of the things we
need to check well when we want to go to God is if we even have what it takes
to approach him. Are you obedient to His word enough to make you a woman after
the heart of God? This needs to be worked on. It is vital for effective and
result oriented prayers.

Then the next thing that is important to attend to in this
situation is what you carry in your heart when you pray. It is so natural and
understandable that with what your husband has done to you, to have huge hatred
towards him and all those who have part-took in the matter. I do not stand to
judge you for being angry even to the point of hatred, but that hatred will not
get the job done. You don’t win battles in hatred, most especially if
it has to do with spiritual battles. Forgive your husband and pray for him with
all sincerity of heart and in love. Pray that God will grant you grace to love your husband despite
all he has done and pray sincerely that God will open his eyes of understanding
and restore your marriage.

Then fight for your marriage whether you are in the home or
outside the home. Be a wife to your husband in prayers and deeds. On special occasions,
send him lovely gifts if you can afford them. Daily send him prayerful messages
and lovely notes. Let you husband know that you are still his wife and you are
praying for him. Though you are out of his home, but you are still his wife. When you
send him messages of prayers every day, you are registering it in his subconscious
that you are still his wife and you are praying for him. These are seeds that God will cause to germinate
and produce fruits for you. Sometimes you don’t just pray and do nothing. You
pray and seek God for actions to take to support your prayers. A good morning
text message, with a blessing for each day to your husband, sent daily to his
phone will do far more than you can imagine. And a sleep well note every night
praying that he gets a good night rest covered in the blood of Jesus and under
the canopy of the Love of God sent every night to his phone will yield results
far more than you can imagine.

Initially he might not acknowledge those messages, but when
you continue and don’t stop he will soon begin to look forward to hearing from
you every morning and every night. When this happens, and with God involved in
your seed, I am yet to see the demon capable of stopping what God will bring
about in your marriage. Soon you will find your husband looking for you and
wanting to reconcile with you, most especially when he is noticing that his
life is having better meaning as a result of your prayers from afar. At that
time he would be the one begging that you come back and take your rightful
place in his life.

You don’t just pray and do nothing, when you pray, it’s
important to seek God for the actions to take in the direction of your prayers,
and the Lord will show you what to do that will work. He has never stopped
being in the business of answering prayers and you will not be an exception. Your case is not a puzzle for God, you just need to pay attention to His leading and act in the direction in which He leads.

Wednesday, 2 August 2017

I bless the Lord for the grace to see another month. It can
only be God who has helped us this far and we trust Him to see us through to the
end, believing that He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it
in Jesus name.

I got a message concerning a wife in a troubled marriage
and was asked to advice on how she can handle those challenges in her marriage. I am
actually sharing this on the blog because I have read a similar story on a
social media group that I belong to and I think it’s a situation that we can
learn from. This is not a situation peculiar to just one person and for those
facing similar challenges I pray you find strength for victory.

Ma, I keep seeing
my mum’s elder sister in the dream. My husband told me that I am fighting a
blood battle and that they are willing to kill or destroy who tries to help me.
He says he can help me, though he does not want to help me because he is not
ready to go or pray extra-mile to help me. He said he can’t sacrifice that. He
also said if not that he likes me he would have sent me packing a long time ago
because he doesn't want problems because of me. He said he cannot tell me all that it entails
but I have to cut off everybody in my family except my twin brother that we are
to fight the battle together. He said I have made a covenant unknowingly. He
said there are lots of things he sees and knows but can’t tell me that they are
deep. My husband’s mother knows everything about it and was encouraging her son
not to do anything with me because the prophet told them that the only solution
for them is to send me packing, so if they frustrate my life I will leave. They told
my husband not to pray with me. All these things my mother-in-law knows that is
why she changed her attitude towards me. He tells his mum everything he does. The prophet
told his mum that unless he divorces me there is no solution and that is why he
is behaving that way to me. But I know that I will conquer because there is
nothing God can’t do. Ma, please in this situation, what can I do? Now I can’t
sit in his car or stay around him. He is running from me because his prophet
told him if he wants his life he should avoid everything about me. All these
things his mum is aware of because she is the one reporting the messages to him
and they also go together while the prophet tells them all sorts of negative
things about me. Ma, my husband and his family are running from me.

I wasn’t in the position to meet the lady with this issue
in person, but the one to counsel her wanted us to discuss this together first. But like I mentioned
earlier this is a situation not in isolation, there are a lot of marriages that
have either been ruined or on the verge of being ruined not by the fault of the
wife or even the husband but as a result of external influences that have been
given room to dominate the marriage which they have absolutely no business
with.

When God instituted marriage at the beginning in Genesis
2:24 the word of God says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” So the first
problem I see in this narration is that rather than the husband leaving father
and mother and cleaving to his wife, he has left his wife to cleave to his
mother. In whatever way we walk against the divine pattern of God we are invariably
walking into trouble. When God said a man should leave father and mother and
cleave to his wife, the Lord was not dumb neither was He foolish. The wisdom of
the Almighty God is matchless. When you follow stupidly the pattern of God you are walking into victory and success no matter how foolish the world sees you.

The father and mother have the assignment of their own marriage
to work on daily till death do them part. If for any reason they begin to
dominate the marriage of their children rather than just play advisory roles,
then they have shifted focus from what should be paramount to them which is their own marriage, to things
that do not concern them. They are operating outside the boundaries of their
assignment while leaving their primary assignment unattended to.

But I sense something fishy in this narration; this wife
says that her husband has been advised not to pray with her any longer and what
that tells me is that unlike what she has been made to believe in this
situation that she is the victim, I am of the belief that the husband is
actually the victim. It is the husband that is the target for destruction in this situation whereas the wife is the hindrance in making the evil plan against him possible. And in ignorance the man is foolishly dancing into the gallery.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says “Though one may be overpowered by
another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” But
I like the way it is put in the NLT Bible translation, it says, “A person
standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and
conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”
So what these adversaries of your husband are trying to achieve is to ensure
that he is standing alone when they strike, because when he is alone he can
easily be defeated.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no-one to help him." So what this prophet has convinced the husband to do is to erode himself of help that he will need when he falls. Note that the Bible didn't say that if one falls his mother or father can help him up, but that his friend, that suitable helper whom the Lord has provided for him ahead of any fall, can help him up when he falls. So when a prophet tells you to stay away from your wife and not to pray with her, what he is doing to you is removing that God given help from your life who has been positioned strategically in your life to help you when you fall.

Doesn't it bother you that they say he should not even pray
with you? It because they know that with God you have formed a triple-braided cord
which is even better and cannot easily be broken. All those ugly tales you have been
told about having to fight a blood battle and entering into a covenant
unknowingly are just stories to make you loss focus from the main battle. Any prophet
that tells you that divorce is the only solution to the challenge of your life
is a false prophet. He is not of God. Jesus said in Matthew 19:5 that “So then,
they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together,
let not man separate.” God was not on vacation when you and your husband got
married to each other. His presence was there bearing witness to the covenant
being entered into by you and your husband as an everlasting covenant till
death do you two part. Would a prophet now say that God made a mistake by permitting
that marriage to take place such that He now had to change his mind to permit a
divorce?

Heaven and earth will pass, but the word of God never changes and
that word of God in Malachi 2:16 reads, “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of
Israel, ‘and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his
garment,’ says the Lord Almighty.” A true prophet of God will not tell a man
that to divorce his wife is the only solution to his problem when in truth God
says He hates divorce.

So now that we have been able to identify some underlining
issues in this situation and you have an idea of the truth about your challenges, I will advise wives going through this sort of
challenge in their marriage to begin to pray. They will align with God in battle through prayer. They will not see their husbands
as their enemy but as a man needing help whom the Lord has assigned to help
as wife and suitable helper. They will wage war against the true enemy of their
husband, their peace and their marriage.

In this warfare, know that the Bible says in Ephesians 6:12
that our struggle (warfare) is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against powers of this dark world and against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So your warfare is not
physical but spiritual. Not against your husband or even your mother-in-law, but
against the forces of evil who are against your peace in marriage. And the
weapons you are fighting with is not your tongue, as a matter of fact those
weapons are not of this world. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:4 says, these
weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds. That is your weapon of
prayers. The kind of weapon you fight with when you put on the whole armor of
God as stated in Ephesians 6:13-19.

While at war with the true enemy of your marriage, you need
to be of good behavior in your home. Perform your wifely duties with all
diligence. Prayerfully submit to your husband as unto the Lord, reverence and
respect him while you still pray. Do not be harsh to your mother-in-law.
Battles are not won in hatred but in love. You owe her respect and honor as
your mother-in-law so pray for grace from God to pay that which you owe. Remember
God said we should honor our father and mother, and your mother-in-law fails
within that category since you are one with your husband in flesh and spirit. But you need to call on God to keep her busy so she doesn't have spare time to interfere with your marriage which is truth is not a business. Obey the word of God for your marriage and let God handle the rest on your
behalf. It is well with you in Jesus name.